Bulls' Noah all revved up

Coming back from 30 games off with injured thumb, center eager to get back on attack

February 22, 2011|By K.C. Johnson, Tribune reporter

Joakim Noah cheers on the Bulls from the bench. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune)

Joakim Noah can't help himself.

Even when he tries to talk in clichés, brushing off unanswerable questions about the Bulls' stretch run potential and how long it will take him to reach game conditioning with the ol' "one game at a time" routine, his passion eventually breaks through.

"It has been a lot of waiting," Noah said of his 30-game absence, which is to end Wednesday night in Toronto. "I've tried to be as patient as possible. I'm really happy I can finally play. Conditioning will take a little while. But I promise I'll give it everything I have and see where it takes us."

One day shy of 10 weeks after surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb, Noah will reclaim his starting center spot in the same arena and against the same Raptors team he faced in his last game.

Of more importance, Noah will assume his role as the Bulls' heart and soul, bringing his intensity — and averages of 14 points and 11.7 rebounds — along for the ride.

"Most of his strengths are team strengths — his team defense, energy, rebounding, shot-blocking, passing," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "When you add those things, it helps your team in a lot of ways.

"Any time you can add a quality passer it makes you that much harder to be defended. With another quality big, you can be more aggressive with your defense. At the start of the year, we played with a quicker tempo and a lot of that is his ability to rebound and run and beat bigs down the floor. We've been a great rebounding team all season. I'm hopeful this will add to that."

The Bulls went 22-8 without Noah, getting strong contributions from Kurt Thomas and Omer Asik. Thibodeau said the big-man rotation will be based on how quickly Noah responds to game intensity as well as matchups.

Thibodeau did say he hopes to get Noah to starters' minutes "as quickly as possible."

"Nothing you do in practice can simulate the intensity of a game," Thibodeau said. "It's a good problem to have. I feel very good about all our guys up front. They all have shown they're more than capable."

Not surprisingly in this season of supreme focus on the task at hand, Thibodeau and players warned against viewing Noah as some magic elixir. The team at least does have practice assimilating a starter back into the lineup from when Carlos Boozer returned after missing the season's first 15 games.

"It's always hard trying to work somebody into the lineup, especially when they've been out for a long time and you're not used to playing with them," Derrick Rose said. "He definitely needs to get in shape. He has been working out great. But we'll have to see how his game shape is. It's going to be hard out there at times.